Ivan Šćulac, who went to Australia in the late Sixties, is back in Motovun for a few weeks. His sister, Klementina, lives here still. It is wonderful to listen to him talk about his memories of the world he had left behind when he was in his late teens. “Listen,” he says with gusto, “we all had a whole bunch of houses at our disposal!” Just after the hilltown was nearly depopulated in the late Forties and early Fifties, each family had spread to the neighboring houses. “One house was for living,” he continues gleefully, “another for the animals, and yet another for the firewood.” They would gather the furniture, the floors, the stairs, and the beams to cook their food and heat their houses. They survived by destroying one of the homes in their neighborhood bit by bit. “I remember pulling everything down,” Ivan laughs with relish. “The oak beams burned for quite a long time!” Listening to Ivan, one realizes that Motovun has gone through a few calamities too many in less than a single century.